Washing of the Water
by xeyes
Summary: PostSH4, post “Eileen’s Death”. Henry struggles with the aftermath…and may not win the fight. AngstORama… M for dark themes. Mature readers only, please.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Angsty!Henry demanded an outing, so here he is in all of his no-holds-barred, over-the-top, tortured pain. However, he does take a long, hard look into the abyss, and things get very dark before they get lighter...if that's not what you want to read, or if such things mess with your head, then this isn't the story for you. **

**Silent Hill, Ashfield, Henry and the rest are Konami's. I don't own them. Title courtesy of a favorite Peter Gabriel song. I don't own that either. No money made, no infringement intended.**

**

* * *

**

A small group of people stood around an open grave in Ashfield Cemetery. Rain fell steadily, and black umbrellas hovered like mushrooms above black-gloved hands. The priest's voice droned on, the sound swallowed up by the heavy late-afternoon rain.

A young man with brown hair stood back from the rest, bare-headed, hands clasped. He wore no coat, and his black suit hung loosely from his lean frame. He leaned slightly to one side, favoring one leg. He looked at nothing and spoke to nobody. A second man, taller and white-haired, stood next to him, holding an umbrella over them both.

Soon, the service ended. The mourners filed away from the grave, slowly, black figures moving through the gray like crows. The young man and his companion remained motionless as the others moved past them, parting like water to avoid them, as if they would be somehow contaminated by their presence.

The priest waited nearby for a few minutes, his white smock incongruously bright in the rain, then left.

The older man stood with him for a while in silence. Then he departed as well, leaving the younger man alone with his thoughts.

The grave grew quiet, and he did not move. The rain fell in large drops like tears. Water ran from his hair over his face and under his white shirt collar, and he did not move. His suit became soaked and his skin grew cold. Rain dripped from his chin and hands, and splashed off of his shoes. Eventually, even the gravediggers left, their job postponed to the next day.

The day passed into evening, and the sky darkened. The lights came on over his head, their illumination diffused by the rain into a soft halo.

His knees gave way, and he fell into the mud, hands gripping the edge of the grave.

_...I never knew..._

The mud squelched through his fingers. He brought a hand to his face, and watched as the rain rinsed the mud away.

_...I never knew that I could feel this…much._

His lips parted, but all that came out was a rusty rattle.

_There's so much I didn't know before._

His head dropped, and his eyes met the curved dark wood in front of him. The small brass plate in its center glinted dully. Raindrops quivered on the glossy wood and ran off toward its sides.

_No...no...remember, it's not real…this isn't happening…it's just a dream…_

_Stop it. I'm not allowed that luxury any more._

He sat back on his heels in the mud, and covered his face with his hands.

_...I don't want to look._

_But I have to. This is happening. Because of me. If I had..._

_No. You can't do this to yourself. If this, if that...it's too late._

_Yes. Yes, I can. If I had watched out for her more...if I had been faster...stronger..._

Memory burned, clarified. The blades whirled loudly. Walter laughed. She walked inexorably into the blood...he filled the bastard's body with lead, over and over again...a bullet passed through his upper arm, but he kept shooting…he smashed the man's face in with his axe. Still, Walter simply _would not die_.

He'd kept calm reasonably well up to that point. At first, it had been out of shock and fear, and knowledge that panic would get him killed. Later, he did his best to be strong for her, to help her hold it together as the madness slowly overcame her. He'd built a wall for himself to keep it all at bay…a wall with shaky foundations, yes, but still a wall. It had bulged and groaned, but it had held so far.

Then, her head disappeared beneath the red, and Henry saw her no more.

He felt the wall finally break. With an agonized cry, he swung with all his might. The axe connected again with flesh and bone (_real flesh and bone, finally)_, and it was over. The madman fell to the ground, crying for his mother...and it was all over.

Two seconds too late. Might as well have been two years. Or never.

_If I had hit him harder. Dodged his shots more quickly. Protected her more. There's so much that I could have done._

_But it doesn't matter now._

Henry knew that grief passed. He's known it as an abstraction, when he was younger, then after his grandfather died several years ago, he'd found it out for himself. He understood that, given enough time, most wounds would heal. Within days, he himself would be almost whole again. The ache in his leg would be gone, and the hole in his arm would be well on its way to mending.

It was the other wounds that would be the problem.

_Not a problem. Never a problem. They're all that's left, all that matters. _

_I don't want them to heal. If they do, I would have nothing left of you. Nothing but a memory.

* * *

_

It was Sunderland, the old superintendent, who had found him unconscious on the floor of his room. Once again, Sunderland had called help to Room 302, and once again, an ambulance had hurried its sole occupant to the hospital. Henry had no idea how he'd gotten back there …only a vague memory of listening to the news report of her death. Then he knew no more until he awoke in the hospital later that day.

They'd patched him up and given him a huge bottle of painkillers (_One every six hours, no more. Take the first when you get home) _and some dressings for his arm, and told him to avoid exertion for two weeks minimum. It was all his fuzzy mind could do to remember that.

Yeah, that must be it. The meds. He hated the way pain medication clouded his head.

Sunderland had collected him and driven him home in silence.

"Let me know if you need anything," he said as Henry turned his key in his door. He knew that the old man wasn't uncaring, just unsure of how to handle all of this. He could understand that. Very well. So, he managed a weary smile.

"Just one thing…"

He hobbled to the chest by the TV and reached into it, then came back to the door. In his good hand was a small purple handbag.

"Can you put this back in her room? It's hers…it was."

Sunderland took the bag with an odd look, but said nothing, and closed the door. Henry heard a door open close by, and then footsteps in the next room. After a little bit, the door closed, the steps died away down the hallway, and Henry was left in the silence with his thoughts.

Later that afternoon, he pulled on an old jacket and left the building as quietly as possible. He walked slowly down the block to the corner convenience store. People paid no attention to him as he moved along, foot by foot. He was fine with that.

He ignored the fearful glances of the cashier and the stares of the other customers as he shuffled down the aisles and fumbled in his wallet.

_I probably look like hell. They think I'm drunk or high or something. _

_Whatever. Better than them knowing the truth._

When he got back to the apartment, he felt as though he'd walked a hundred miles.

The orange light of sunset was almost gone from his windows, and the room was bathed in shadow, but he left the light switch off. He dumped the paper bag by the stove and threw its predecessor into his trash can. Then, he slowly got down on his knees in front of the hole in the living room wall.

The purple handbag hung on the wall of her bedroom as it had before. Her stuffed rabbit slumped on her bed once again. He could see the slight indentation in the bed where she had sat watching TV that afternoon.

_I meant to ask her why Robbie had blood on his face. I never did. Perhaps it was never really there. I can't tell from here._

_Clothes that will never be worn again. Sheets that will never be slept in again..._

_You know how hard I tried. But it was no use. _

He sat back on his heels. His eye caught the edge of the brown paper grocery bag on the counter by his head. He thought of the food it contained. Food was life. He hadn't eaten in days. Hadn't been able to. He wasn't hungry now. So why had he gone to all that trouble to get a bag of food that he didn't need?

_No use at all._

The kitchen faucet was dripping slowly. It was the only sound in the room.

…except for the faint sound of a crack forming somewhere…

_To any of them. To Richard, to Jasper, to Cynthia, to Andrew. I stood by as they died horribly. I did nothing._

...plink...

_I had weapons, information, freedom -- of a sort -- and I did nothing._

...plink...

The sound would not let his tired mind get the rest it needed. It poked at him like a stone in his shoe. The cracking noise grew.

_In the end, they became just cards around a hole. Threats to beat down. Just more spirits in the way. Doomed to wander there for eternity. They didn't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. _

_Except for those who put them there … and, perhaps, for those too weak to do anything about it._

The cracking sound grew louder, and then there was a tiny

_pop._

Thoughts burst from his brain and buzzed around him like hornets.

_...so much blood, brains, shattered bone and flesh. Some of it was mine. Walls bleeding, pulsing red. Everywhere..._

_...He was laughing, at all of us, for thinking that we could escape. Perhaps I got the last laugh...perhaps not..._

...plink...

_...what kind of world would allow something like this to happen? What kind of world is this that nurtures that kind of hate? Where does the normal world end and that world begin? And how can I trust my eyes to know the difference?..._

…_how many more like him are there in that damned town? How many more times will this happen? Who else will end up dead? I can't do anything about it…how can I when I don't even understand what really happened? What is real?..._

…plink…

…_What was so broken in him that he thought this place was his mother? How does a little kid end up screwed up that badly? My God, what did they do to him?..._

_...Will they come after me for killing him?..._

_...I don't know up from down. Black from white. Dead from alive. Nothing makes sense. The rules don't apply any more. I can't put this back together...nobody can. _

_It's too broken…_

...plink...

He sat there for a very long time. The orange light drifted and the shadows grew longer before the room was swallowed up in darkness. Flickering yellow and red light filtered through the windows from the neon signs across the street.

The buzzing in his head grew louder as thoughts multiplied freely. All of the things that he'd held back flowed out of him, the little terrors and worries and annoyances and discomforts that he'd shoved aside while running to the next hole, fleeing the next monster, solving the next puzzle, trying to make it to the next safe place. Now that they were loose…there was nowhere for them to go.

The room soon filled with them. There was nothing else, nothing but Henry on his knees in the middle of the storm. The room vibrated with their buzzing. After some time, they began to slowly come together, growing ever closer and tighter. Finally, they slammed together into a single point that burst inside his head with a brilliant light.

Henry's eyes focused on the wall before him. In the darkness, colors played off of the shadows in the violated sheet rock, off of everything like multicolored flames. He saw the smallest details of the pebbled paint, the dust on the baseboard, the cleaner patch of carpet where the pistol had lain for years before yesterday.

He lifted himself up and pushed the cabinet back into place with his shoulder, ignoring the pain that shot through his arm like fire.

The storage chest stood open and dark. He got down on his knees in front of it and put his good arm in, feeling around. Many of the things that had been in there were gone…all that was left was a broken wine bottle, a piece of pipe, a Saint Medallion, and…

The revolver was heavy and cold, as he'd remembered. He was sure that he'd taken along all of its ammo before his leap into the murky black hole in the back room, and emptied it all into that bastard's body. But now, it held a single bullet.

He moved toward the door, turned the locking knob above the doorknob, and shot the bolt home. He peered through the peephole, and saw that the hallway outside was empty. A flat expanse of dingy white filled his vision. Nobody had heard him.

The hall in his room seemed miles long. The hole at the end gaped open still, and he grimaced as he bent to enter it.

The room beyond still stank. The refrigerator stood open with its red-stained contents rotting in their neat, tidy plastic bags and jars. The huge cross leaned as it had before, empty, and the implements of Walter's ritual still rested on a table. The inky black hole was gone.

Somewhere outside, there were voices. Male voices, one higher and one lower, arguing about something. Sunderland and the guy in 301. Again. Guy never paid his rent on time.

Henry lowered himself to the dusty wooden floor in front of the cross. He leaned back against the table opposite the refrigerator and closed his eyes, inhaling the smell of death and blood and decay and relaxing into the soothing warmth that spread its tendrils through him like whisky.

He turned the gun in his hands as he stared up at the cross. Its oily black feathers glinted in the faint light of the refrigerator, and the slightly translucent cords hanging from it seemed to glow. The blood on the spikes at the center of the cross was still wet, as if freshly shed. Its dark, glistening beauty made it that much harder to close his eyes.

He lifted the revolver to his temple. Its tip was a hard cold circle against his heated skin. He hadn't realized that he was sweating. Suddenly, a single thought wafted through his mind.

_I wish I had that handbag right about now…_

CLICK.

The sound was unnaturally loud.

Henry opened his eyes, and lowered the gun slowly. Yes, the bullet was ready to fire.

He stared up at the cross, daring himself to keep his eyes open as he lifted the revolver again.

CLICK.

Nothing happened.

His gaze fell upon some of the red objects in the refrigerator. Bags and jars…jars and bags…bags of blood…jars of hearts…ten hearts…

His mind wandered.

_Ten hearts…_

The high voice of the guy from 301 reminded him of another…

_Ten hearts…sailing down the river…_

Music he hadn't heard in years flowed through his mind, words altered seamlessly.

_Ten hearts are better than one…_

The voices soared in his memory, joyous and free.

_I hearing it, I li -- _

CLICK.

Nothing happened.

_What the hell…_

The bullet was still ready. Henry tipped it into his hand.

_A third silver bullet. Bigger, for this revolver. Odd._

Snap, click click click. Loaded and ready. Hadn't misfired before. Couldn't now. Not now.

…

CLICK.

_God **damn** it!_

He slammed his head backward against the table, and he heard something above him fall and roll. Before he could react, something heavy knocked him on the head, and dropped into his lap. The pain and anger cut through the haze around his brain.

He picked up the object.

_That black cup._

Its lip was stained with blood. His? Walter's? Someone else's?

His fingers traced the spiraling vein around its stem, the wide black bowl. It was warm and smooth, like skin. It seemed an organic thing, almost alive, not crafted by the hand of man. It fascinated him.

As he turned it around and around in his hands, a voice spoke in his head. Her voice.

_This is what he wanted all along. Don't let him win, Henry._

Twenty-one sacraments. He would have been the last…

The last one.

The only one left.

He gritted his teeth.

_You…fool._

It all laid itself out in front of him, clear as day.

_Some Receiver of Wisdom you'd be, you idiot. Playing right into his hands. Sorry, Henry. You don't get out of hell this easily._

_Did you really think you could, anyway?_

Henry threw the revolver across the floor. It slid through the dust, knocked aside an empty plastic bottle that had fallen on the floor, and disappeared under a heavy shelf.

Whump…

_BOOM!_

The bullet shot past him and sliced through his jeans. A red line formed along the pale skin of his hip. As Henry watched, blood welled up from the line and dripped down, and was absorbed by denim and the dusty wooden floorboards.

A voice spoke from far, far away…

_Damn. That was my last clean pair of jeans._

Silence. Then, running feet in the hallway. Sunderland's gruff voice.

"Henry! Are you all right in there?"

Henry took a deep breath and called back.

"I'm fine."

He heard Sunderland muttering to himself as he shuffled back down the hallway.

His hands were empty. The cup had disappeared. He looked around, but he couldn't see it anywhere. He didn't think that he'd dropped it…

He struggled to his feet, and found the table empty as well. He moved to the shelf, laid down on the floor, and felt around under it for the revolver. His hand found only dust. It was gone.

Henry pulled himself to his hands and knees and crawled toward the hole. He put one arm through the hole, then the other, and hefted himself through, rolling into the hallway outside. He felt something give under his bandage, and warm wetness on his skin.

The air was fresh and clean. He took a deep, ragged breath, and his head swam. He fell to the floor.

The room was absolutely silent. It occurred to him that the faucet was no longer dripping. And his head didn't feel fuzzy any more.

Pain meds must have worn off…

But he hadn't opened the bottle from the hospital, and it had been hours…so the fuzz couldn't have been from that…

He lay there for an eternity. Then, a thought drifted through his brain.

…_Rent was due four days ago. I haven't paid my rent either._

_Heh. I'm as bad as he is._

Something gave way. His shoulders heaved, and he shook soundlessly, face pressed into the old nubbly carpet.

* * *

The bag of food went untouched on the counter that night, next to the unopened bottle of pills from the hospital and the packet of clean dressings. Henry sat on his bed, staring at the walls. 


	2. Chapter 2

They came to the building the next day, while he lay on the couch. He heard them down the hallway, but couldn't bring himself to open the door. He stood by the peephole instead and listened as Sunderland sorted through his keys at her door.

"I'm sorry about your daughter," Sunderland said. "She was such a nice young lady. Never caused any problems. Always paid her rent on time."

"Thank you," a male voice replied. Her father, probably.

"That's Henry's room, there," Sunderland said. "He was almost killed by that maniac, too."

Silence.

"He's back from the hospital, if you..."

"I don't want to see him," a female voice said. An older woman. "I have nothing to say to him."

"Melly," the male voice said. "Don't. It's not his fault."

"Maybe, maybe not. I don't care. Why did he have to live when my little girl couldn't?"

Henry slid slowly to the floor as he realized that he would never have the answer to that question.

_What could I tell her? She deserves to know what happened. What would I say? That her daughter died because I couldn't get the job done? It's the truth._

The muffled sound of voices and movement came through the wall. After a while, he couldn't bear it any more. He stood and shuffled down the hall.

The hole at the end of his hallway had disappeared, soundlessly, at some time the previous night. The hall now extended all the way back, as it should have done, and terminated not in a smelly dusty room, but in two smaller rooms, one on each side.

Henry opened the door to the room on the left. A single folding metal chair occupied the small space. It faced a bare window above the narrow balcony outside the apartment. The walls of the little room gleamed white in the sunlight.

It took him a couple of tries to get the long-unused window open, but eventually he succeeded, and he dumped the chair onto the balcony. His good hand grabbed the window frame. He pulled himself through, and swung himself into the chair.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in early fall. The bright light and the noise of traffic and people flooded his senses. The sun's warmth felt like a violation of his body, fingers crawling along his skin, insinuating themselves into his being, pulling at him. Henry wanted so badly to slip back into his room and never come out…but he gripped the chair with both hands and forced himself to stay.

He watched the cars go by and the traffic lights change from green to yellow to red and back again. He watched people walk down the street, past the subway entrance cordoned off with bright yellow police tape. Buses went by, carrying people back and forth. He heard laughing, yelling, talking, arguing.

He watched the people in the other apartments. Richard's ugly striped chair still sat in 207, empty. The kids in the next apartment played, and the audiophile in 107 bopped around to his favorite records. Everybody else seemed to be at work or otherwise absent.

Normal. It was all very normal.

He'd hoped that this would help, that this would bring him back into reality. But he found himself feeling more alone than ever up on his little balcony. Still, he stayed seated in his chair and let the afternoon wash over him.

Evening came. The restaurant across the street buzzed to life. People came and went. Somewhere over there, people were laughing and enjoying drinks at the Southfield, or winding spaghetti around their forks at the Fuseli…

His gaze rested briefly on the hotel across the street, beyond the other half of South Ashfield Heights. Near its roof, two dark round holes stared at him like sightless eyes.

_I think those wouldn't go anywhere…they never had that writing around them. They should have by now. I don't remember them being there when I was standing by that neon sign. But things looked very different from over there._

_It's a moot point now anyway._

Darkness fell, and the rhythms of the day slowed. Lights went out in windows, street noises grew quieter and less frequent. Across the way, Mom put the kids to bed, and the record player played no more. Eventually the city slept. Only the occasional passing car disturbed the thick quiet.

The stars moved in their ageless paths, in the all-embracing vault of the heavens. He gazed up at the thin sliver of moon hanging in the sky, and felt the earth turn under him. On his hard metal chair surrounded by the velvety night, Henry found respite for his frayed nerves.

The next morning, he got up from the chair to find a small rectangular object under his door. For a moment, he froze, but then he realized that the thing wasn't red, but a creamy white …an envelope. He picked it up with shaky hands.

It contained one piece of heavy paper. A man's writing broke the expanse of white with its jagged black spikes.

_**Tomorrow, four PM.**_

_Must have been dropped off yesterday…so, today, then._

He didn't know whether to smile or cry.

* * *

Sleep was unnecessary. Eating was out of the question. 

He dug his old black suit out of the back of his closet. The whole thing, complete with shirt and tie, was still hanging in its plastic dry-cleaner's bag, untouched since his grandfather's funeral years ago. He pulled off the bag and shook the hanger out, and put his nose to it. Not musty at all.

_Good. Hope it still fits._

When he stepped out of the shower, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He didn't recognize himself at first. His eyes were sunken and his face was gaunt. Blue circles hung low under his eyes. Stubble shadowed his face like dirt. He looked like death warmed over.

_Which is a pretty accurate assessment._

His hand shook as he shaved, and the razor caught him just under the corner of his jaw. A trickle of red blood flowed down his neck, past the pulsing vein, and over his collarbone, disappearing into his white undershirt. He did nothing to stop it, just watched it run until it dried up on its own.

_Proof of life…_

Sunderland remained silent throughout the funeral. Her family avoided them, as if they weren't there. Two young women stood across from him…friends of hers, he guessed. They looked sideways at him and Sunderland and whispered to each other, but said nothing to him.

His eyes stayed fixed on the green grass around his shoes as it was slowly swallowed up by brown bubbly mud. He felt invisible, insubstantial. Perhaps, if he stood long enough in this rain, he would melt into the mud and evaporate into the air, as if he'd never existed. He found that thought oddly soothing.

Then he felt eyes upon him. He raised his head, and met the eyes of an older man. Her father, probably. He held an umbrella over a smaller woman with a gray, pinched face.

_I'm sorry_,Henry thought. _I know you can't hear me, but I am sorry..._

Her father's eyes – her eyes -- held an unspoken question.

_Someday…I wish I could tell you that.

* * *

_

But the others were gone now, and they were alone together for the last time.

_I have nothing but memories of you. Memories that never leave me. Not even at night._

The stream of blood from this morning was still on his neck. The rain that soaked him to the bone had not yet washed it off. He could feel the crackly crustiness of the dried blood.

_I have everything to give, but you can't take it any more._

_More than I ever knew._

…_You will never see any of this. You will never feel this rain, never see your mother and father again as I saw them this afternoon. Our lives crossed that night, and never diverged. Yours ended, and mine must continue. _

_Time passes, and things change, but not for you._

His hand fumbled in his pocket, and drew out a small silver disc on a cord. Henry moved forward, and placed the medallion flat on the coffin.

The hollow thunk of metal on wood broke through the gray haze that shrouded his brain.

_Too little. Too late._

_Oh…Jesus ..._

He fell forward onto his hands and knees. His forehead plopped into the mud. His back arched and convulsed as he screamed soundlessly into the white noise of the rain.

After a long while, Henry stopped shaking. He slumped back onto his heels, spent. His head fell back, and the rain and mud rolled down over his face.

_If I could feel...feel anything at all...but I don't even have that any more, Eileen. I can't give you that now. I have nothing left for you._

_I don't know what to do._

Footsteps were approaching slowly. Someone with an umbrella. He could hear the patter of rain on the taut fabric.

"Henry."

Sunderland stood there, holding the umbrella over him. His old shoes squelched in the mud.

"Henry. It's time to go."

Henry sat still, letting the rain wash over him.

"Someone's waiting to see you."

_That was a first..._

"It's her father. He says he needs to talk to you."

_...What? Why?_

_Wait…_

_Could it be..._

Henry's eyes fell upon the brass plate.

_Eileen Melanie Galvin. Beloved daughter. Gone too soon._

_No, not gone, not yet..._

He had never believed in miracles and such. They always seemed more like happy coincidences to him, interpreted as divine intervention but without proof.

He reached forward to the dark wood, and rested his fingers on it.

_...thank you, Eileen._

Henry slowly got to his feet, and turned to Sunderland, who was looking at him as if he was crazy.

Well, perhaps he was, but now wasn't the time to worry about that. He felt the hole in his arm throb, protesting the wet and cold.

"Your car is going to get dirty," he said.

"I'll put a blanket on the seat," Sunderland replied.

* * *

The tall man from the cemetery was sitting in the chair by the window when Henry opened his door. 

_Strange, to be able to pass through so freely now._

The man was looking at the picture of Henry's grandparents on the little table. He stood as Henry entered.

"Mr. Townshend."

"Henry, please," he said, extending his uninjured hand. The man's eyes flickered to his other arm, at the lump that barely lifted the black fabric of Henry's jacket. He shook the hand, and met Henry's eye.

"Andrew. Andrew Galvin."

His eyes went back to Henry's arm.

"What happened there?"

"Bullet."

"I'm a doctor. Mind if I have a look?"

"Please, don't trouble yourself."

"No trouble."

"Can I get you anything?"

"You should sit down. I can get things myself."

"No. I insist."

"Well…a glass of water, then."

Henry was acutely conscious of how long it took him to pull a glass from the shelf. Thank God the tap was back to normal. The water whooshed into the glass with a familiar sound.

Then, he poured himself a half-glass of water, and reached for the bottle of pills on the counter. He struggled with the child-proof cap for a few moments. It took two hands and some small amount of force to open, and he could only grip with one.

_Damn it. I'm going to need one of these to get through this …why can't they make a cap that can be opened by someone who actually needs to?_

He heard footsteps behind him, and Mr. – no, Dr.Galvin took the bottle from him. He read the label, and his mouth hardened.

"This is strong stuff," he said, looking Henry up and down. "More than usual for a bullet wound."

"That's what the hospital gave me."

"You haven't been taking these."

"No."

Galvin opened the bottle easily, and extracted one pill.

"Swallow this," he said, pushing the pill into Henry's hand. Henry did as he was told. Galvin handed him the half-glass of water, and he washed the pill down. It landed in his empty stomach like a rock.

"Let me see your arm."

Henry removed his jacket and shirt and pulled his tie over his head, and Galvin unwrapped the wet bandages on his arm. It had been bleeding off and on, and the dressing would have stuck if it hadn't been soaked through. The slight movement of air across the wet wounds stung Henry almost to tears.

"It's not healing like it should," he said. "You need to be taking those pills regularly. Too much pain will slow down the healing process, and if it gets infected it will take much longer." He extracted a new dressing from the plastic bag that Henry had brought home from the hospital, and rewrapped the arm tightly. Henry saw his eyes dart quickly to the untouched bag of groceries and back again.

"And stay out of the rain."

Henry nodded, and put his shirt back on. Buttoning it took a long time, but Galvin waited patiently. Then, he put the loop of his tie back over his head and under his collar, and struggled to tighten it.

"Don't bother, Henry."

"No, sir. I want to."

The older man said nothing as Henry straightened the tie and put his wet suit jacket back on, one arm at a time. When he was done, he handed the older man the full glass of water, and the two men returned to their seats.

Galvin took a small sip and placed the glass on the coffee table. Henry sat on the edge of the couch.

"Thank you," he said.

"I need something from you."

"Anything."

"I need to know what happened. How she...my wife wouldn't want me here, but I want to be able to tell her later…"

Henry drew a deep breath. He wanted this, so badly...but suddenly, he wasn't sure if he was up to it. He had to be…_had to be... had to…_

He sagged.

"You're still weak," Galvin said. "This can wait."

"No," Henry said. "No, it shouldn't. Eileen was..." He swallowed. "Eileen was amazing. I saw her take on things twice her size with just a chain or a nightstick...I don't think I would be here talking to you if it hadn't been for her."

"That's the other thing..."

"Why..."

"...Yes," Galvin said. He looked very uncomfortable.

_Why I'm alive and she died. Good question._

Henry knew better than to hope for absolution. Nobody could grant him that. He didn't know if he even deserved it. But the little things meant so much more now.

_Thank you, Eileen, for this last kindness. For allowing me this._

"I failed her, Dr. Galvin."

Galvin looked puzzled.

"How? Wasn't she killed by that Sullivan man?"

"Yes, but...I couldn't stop it from happening. God knows I tried, but I failed her."

Galvin looked at him with sympathy.

"Henry, you seem like a decent young man. I know that you would have done your best for my daughter."

Henry shook his head. "It wasn't enough..."

Galvin sat back in the chair. Henry was reminded of the blood that soaked it once, and he could almost see the flicker of the candle in the dark...

"It's...I don't know if you're going to believe what I'm going to tell you. I don't know if I can believe it myself. I just know that it happened."

"You'd better start at the beginning. I want to know everything."

The rain fell softly outside the windows as Henry began his story.

* * *

**A/N: Kudos to those who spotted Henry getting his Yes groove on while sitting there with the revolver. An odd choice under the circumstances, but I think we can excuse him just this once.**


End file.
